HomeMy WebLinkAbout06-03-25 Public Comment - N. Stein - Headwaters Community Housing Trust __ UDC UpdateFrom:Nathan Stein
To:Bozeman Public Comment
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Headwaters Community Housing Trust // UDC Update
Date:Tuesday, June 3, 2025 10:22:13 AM
Attachments:250520 UDC Public Comment - HCHT.pdf
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Please see the attached public comment in support of the proposed revisions to the UnifiedDevelopment Code. Thanks for all the work that you're doing.
Best,
Nathan
Nathan Stein
Executive Director | Headwaters Community Housing Trust
406.922.9554 | nstein@headwatershousing.org
www.headwatershousing.org
My name is Nathan Stein and I’m the Executive Director of Headwaters Community
Housing Trust – we’re a local nonproflt dedicated to the creation and preservation of
permanently affordable missing middle housing here in Bozeman. If folks aren’t familiar
with our organization, they may be familiar with our foundational project: The Bridger View
Neighborhood adjacent to Story Mill Park. We invite everyone to visit the neighborhood and
see for themselves what believe is a shining example of the missing middle housing that
Bozeman needs, and that these revisions to the UDC aim to enable.
The Community Housing Trust and the City of Bozeman worked together to deliver the
Bridger View neighborhood, a LEED-Platinum sustainable, mixed-income, thriving
community that includes 32 homes that will remain affordable in perpetuity through our
community land trust model. Today, BV is home to Bozeman teachers, nurses, small
business owners, city officials, young professionals, and more — all folks who’d previously
been priced out of homeownership in our community.
Bridger View is a shining example of “missing middle” housing types – townhomes, condos,
small single-family homes organized into cottage courts – and as a mixed-income
community, in included homes priced at both market-rate and below-market. Our
Community Housing Trust is focused on the latter, but both continue to be needed to meet
the diverse housing needs of folks living and working in our community.
There were many conditions that made it possible for the Bridger View neighborhood to
exist in the form that it does today – one of which was the partnership and goodwill of the
City Planning staff that allowed us to bend a number of rules in pursuit of a tight-knit,
comfortable community that made the most efficient use of the land available. At the
project outset, had we designed the neighborhood to code, we would have only been able
to flt 30 large single family homes into the 8-acre space. Today, Bridger View is made up of
62 homes connected through shared greenspaces and small-scale connecting roads.
This was made possible through 19 relaxations from the UDC – these deviations allowed for
smaller lot sizes, smaller setbacks, shared greenspaces, smaller pedestrian-oriented
roadways, and disconnected parking, to name a few. We believe that Bridger View is an
example of what’s possible if our community makes it easier to build the kind of missing
middle housing stock that we’re lacking.
Bozeman needs more of what Bridger View provided, and so it needs more of what made
Bridger View possible – that includes a development code that allows for more fiexibility
and more of the missing middle housing that’s on display in the neighborhood today. We
believe that the City’s efforts to update the UDC will make it easier for Bozeman to produce
more Bridger-View scale homes.
We appreciate City Staff’s efforts to engage the community in this process and commend
them on responding to community feedback. We look forward to a continued partnership
as we work to deliver the housing that Bozeman needs.